


Some pun about Clouds and Lightning

by notyourparadigm



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 12:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11578176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourparadigm/pseuds/notyourparadigm
Summary: I decided to dramatize a dream I had about Lightning being caught in a bad battle situation and Cloud came in to save the day. Enjoy!





	Some pun about Clouds and Lightning

_Never trust an elevator._

Lightning reloaded the clip of her magazine, taking a deep breath behind the narrow corner of cover between the wall and elevator opening. Her elbow pressed into one of the buttons on the useless control terminal, not even offering an affirmative _beep_ anymore. Just her luck that the elevator would break down right in front of a full garrison of Sanctum troops, including what appeared to be two new state-of-the-art battle tanks that she had never seen before. _What is this, their weapons development sector?_

She didn’t have any more opportunity to wonder, as the tanks gave a large mechanical whine, beginning to unload their payload of missiles at her current point of cover. She had no choice but to dive out of the way, laying herself bare for the gunfire of the foot soldiers. It was the forth time they had flushed her out of her cover in such a way, and it was clear that they would be happy to whittle away at her strength in the same way repeatedly if needed. _I can’t win keeping this up._

But she was stuck between a metaphorical rock and a literal hard place– the elevator opening served as a bottleneck for her potential movement. Making a dash out of the cover was more of a risk than she was willing to take without an opening. The room lacked any real cover for her to take, and while so starkly outnumbered by both ground troops and firepower, she would have no hope of taking them out head-first. 

“Damn it…” she sighed, falling back against the control terminal, chest heaving with her heavy breaths. She needed to come up with a plan. _If I could just deal with those tanks, I might have a chance versus the ground troops in close quarters…_

Poking out from her cover, Lightning focused her gunfire on the closer of the two tanks. The bullets seemed to ricochet off of its black metallic armour, even after she unloaded her entire clip. _Every amour has a weak point. Nothing is indestructible._ Reloading, she opened fire again, this time panning her bullets across the body of the tank, looking for some sort of leeway in the metal. 

Another mechanical whine signified the next volley of missiles, but a smirk crept onto her face as she prepared to dive out of the way. _The undercarriage. They didn’t bother to reinforce the undercarriage of the tank, I just need to get a low enough angle to reach it…_

The recoil of the missile hits next to her was enough to knock her off balance, but one stumble was fine. She could do this, she had a plan. 

She went to reload her magazine– only to discover she had used her last magazine of ammunition. 

“Damn it!” She fumbled at her inventory, trying to find anything she could have missed–– a half empty clip, different ammunition, anything… “Damn it, damn it!”

 _There goes that plan._ She mused to herself bitterly, thumping her head against the elevator panel defeatedly as the soldier’s bullets whizzed by. _As soon as they realize I don’t have any ammunition, they won’t hesitate to advance in here head-on. I might as well be a sitting duck._

Taking a deep breath, she unravelled her weapon back into its blade form. _I guess I don’t have much of a choice here._

Easier said than done— bullets snagged and grazed by her even as she peeked out from her cover, trying to assess her enemies and her best chance at not dying as soon as she dashed outwards. There were just too many enemies for her to take on alone from a corner. 

She couldn’t help but laugh bitterly at herself. _If only I had actually managed to keep some friends around, I might have actually stood a chance at surviving this._ For a moment she wondered where they all were— if they would even catch wind of this, after the deed was done. 

It took the distant roar of an engine and the startled cry of several of the ground troops disrupt her pitying thoughts. 

For a moment, the gunfire into the elevator stopped, redirected at the new arrival. Lightning took the opportunity to finally make her way out of the elevator, dashing and swiping at two of the distracted soldiers before falling back to behind a large metallic pillar, one of many that dotted the wide floor of the apparent testing arena. It was then that she could finally see the source of the distraction–– a large motorbike had burst in from the opposite side of the facility, plowing down several of the ground troops as it looped back around. 

On the second pass, the driver jumped out of the seat, nothing but a flash of black and metal and a speck of blond. He landed atop one of the battle tanks, wielding the most absurdly large sword Lightning had ever seen. Yet he held it with ease, thrusting through the tank’s armour with nothing more than a grunt of effort and an assault of panicked sparks from the machine’s electrical system. It wasn’t long after he removed the sword from the hull of the tank that it began to crumble and burst, imploding on itself.

The mysterious man fell back from the assailing gunfire to where Lightning had taken cover. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. “Who are you?”

He didn’t return the gaze, eyes instead focused on the approaching troops. “I don’t think now is the time for introductions. Here,” without looking back, he tossed another magazine of ammunition her way, “Cover me.”

Lightning wasn’t keen on the idea of taking orders from a strangers, but beggars after all weren't choosers. “Copy that.” She cleared the path for his next assault.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never beaten a Final Fantasy game in my life pls don't judge too hard


End file.
